Wine's share of the alcohol market now almost the same as beer's

Australians now consume almost as much alcohol from wine as they do from beer.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics this week show that in2016-17, wine contributed 71.2 million litres of pure alcohol, up slightly from 70.9 million litres in 2015-16. In per capita terms, there were 3.6 litres consumed per person in 2016-17, down from 3.8 litres in 2011-12 as per capita consumption of wine declined by 1.0% per year on average over the five year period. The share of pure alcohol in wine by wine type has been relatively stable in recent years, in 2016-17 white wine accounted for 48.2% of all pure alcohol in wine, while red wine made up 37.7% and other wines 14.1%.

The volume of wine available for consumption was 561 million litres in 2016-17, this was the largest ever recoded volume, with the second highest being 2015-16 (559 million litres).In per capita terms, this was 28.4 litres, equivalent to just under 38 standard 750ml bottles per year or around almost 5.5 glasses (standard drinks) per week for each person aged 15 years and over.